Meandering through Late Minoan III Crete, Proust, Pottery, and Palaces

By Professor Hal Haskell

Hal Haskell, Professor of Classics, Southwestern University, Visiting Professor at College Year in Athens, will give a lecture on “Meandering through Late Minoan III Crete, Proust, Pottery, and Palaces” on Wednesday, April 2, 2014 at 7.00 p.m. at DIKEMES/CYA Auditorium, Plateia Stadiou 5 (Kallimarmaro).

As written in the abstract of the lecture: “Meandering through the politics of Late Bronze Age Crete follows some interesting paths. One avenue branches from very strict scientific criteria with a determined objective mind set. A more productive wandering may come from Proust, who anticipated memory theory by remembering a cookie. Proust realized that human beings make memory or, in our case, politics. While thinking about the why and the how of his memory, Proust described what is now understood scientifically. In the same way, Cézanne understood the mechanics and forces of a bridge by painting its honest essence.

“On the path of Proust, we can wander back towards some early, ‘non scientific,’ understandings of the politics of Late Minoan Crete and take them with us to join to later archaeological and scientific analyses. When humanistic and scientific approaches are combined, the meandering takes a more definitive turn. Our specific scientific data are transport and storage jars, our sensibilities like Proust or Cézanne.”

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